_Nov. 19._ Alden and I were put on Plantation Commission work as soon as we got here, had a session Wednesday and tried several cases. The untrustworthiness of these people is more apparent and troublesome than ever. I feel as if it would not be safe to allow them to gin the cotton--it seems certain that a great deal of it would be stolen. Their skill in lying, their great reticence, their habit of shielding one another (generally by silence), their invariable habit of taking a rod when you, after much persuasion, have been induced to grant an inch, their assumed innocence and ignorance of the simplest rules of _meum_ and _tuum_, joined with amazing impudence in making claims,--these are the traits which try us continually in our dealings with them, and sometimes almost make us despair of their improvement--at least, in the present generation. It is certain that their freedom has been too easy for them,--they have not had a hard enough time of it. In many cases they have been "fair spoiled." FROM H. W. _Nov. 27._ Rose is a trump. She does all my cooking neater and better than I have ever had it done--makes bread and biscuit and puddings as well as I could myself, and until this morning, with our help, of course, has done the chamber-work too. With those three children I have got along as well as I could ask. I begin to appreciate what and how much they have learned the last two years. [_Dec. 11._] Over seventy children at Sunday School. I had a very nice time with them indeed, and was much struck with their progress in general intelligence. Their eager, intelligent faces and earnest attention and interest in all I said to them were a great contrast to anything they would have manifested two years ago. Indeed, I could not have talked to them, and they would not have understood me if I had, in anything like the same way that I did to-day. _Nov. 23._ We saw Mrs. Vaughn, who seems to find life here very hard, and repeats the inevitable experience of all those who have ever had anything to do with the blacks previously, that these are the most degraded and barbarous of their race in the country. We met C. Soule and Captain Crane,[176] with their two servants, coming down to spend Thanksgiving. We had a right pleasant evening. Captain Crane played and sung, and we were very glad to hear the piano, and he to touch one. FROM W. C. G.